Today on his radio show, CNN host Glenn Beck expressed his disdain of the recent Supreme Court ruling granting terror suspects the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts, exclaiming that if he were President, he would do away with detaining and prosecuting terrorism suspects altogether. Instead, a President Beck would “shoot them all in the head [if] we think that they are against us.”
BECK: We’re going to shoot them all in the head. If we think that they are against us, we’re going to shoot them and kill them, period. Because that’s the only thing we’ve got going for us is we can put them away and get information. If we can’t put them away and they’re going to use our court system, kill them.
There are two kinds of courage in war – physical courage and moral courage. Physical courage is very common on the battlefield. Men and women on both sides risk their lives, place their own bodies in harm’s way. Moral courage, however, is quite rare. According to Chris Hedges, the brilliant New York Times war correspondent who survived wars in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, “I rarely saw moral courage. Moral courage is harder. It requires the bearer to walk away from the warm embrace of comradeship and denounce the myth of war as a fraud, to name it as an enterprise of death and immorality, to condemn himself, and those around him, as killers. It requires the bearer to become an outcast. There are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community, even the nation.”
The Brown government has changed its mind on placing security scanners at every London tube station and mainline train stations across the country, because the technology does not work and the public would not tolerate the long delays such scanning would require.
Despite doubts from London Underground after the original trials Gordon Brown gave the scheme his support in November 2007. London Underground questioned the practicality of the technology as well as worrying that the queues created would provide a new target for terrorists.
But today Tom Harris, Under-Secretary of State for Transport, said the project would be abandoned because achieving airport-style screening is not feasible using today’s technology, and the public would not stand for the delays caused and the invasion of privacy involved.
As we pointed out at the time the “security theatre” of such a scheme would be more important than any actual impact.
Instead of fixed scanners British Transport Police will continue to use some mobile scanners and sniffer dogs.
The City of New York is trying avoid paying 9/11 injury claims by questioning the validity of many of them. Lawyers for the city recently filed court papers alleging that about 30 percent of claimants aren’t seriously ill, and another 3 percent are not injured at all. Lawyers representing the more than 10,000 plaintiff suing New York City for their 9/11 ailments – at least half of which are firefighters, police and other first responders – say the city is twisting the nature of the injury claims.
In the hours and days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, thousands of rescue workers descended on Ground Zero to help with recovery efforts. Sifting through dust and rubble, sometimes with their bare hands, many lacked the clothing and equipment that could have kept them safe from harm. Several studies have confirmed that Ground Zero first responders are suffering from ill health as a result of their exposure to toxic dust at the site. Released last May, the initial findings of a three-year study conducted by the Mt. Sinai Medical Center found that of the 9,000 WTC first responders examined, 70-percent had suffered some type of lung ailment after the attacks, and that 60-percent still faced respiratory problems. Another report released by the FDNY that same month reported that cases of the rare lung disease sarcoidosis had risen dramatically among firefighters and EMS workers who were first responders at Ground Zero. And the New York City Department of Health also found that one in eight first responders still suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
MOSCOW – Russia’s foreign minister on Friday warned against the use of force on Iran, saying there is no proof it is trying to build nuclear weapons.
Sergey Lavrov said Iran should be engaged in dialogue and encouraged to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency.
Lavrov made the statement when asked to comment on an Israeli Cabinet member’s statement earlier this month that Israel could attack Iran if it does not halt its nuclear program.
“I hope the actual actions would be based on international law,” Lavrov said. “And international law clearly protects Iran’s and anyone else’s territorial integrity.”
Israel’s military refused to confirm or deny a report Friday that its warplanes staged a major rehearsal this month for a possible attack on Iran.
The technological enslavement grid is getting increasingly more insane and most people don’t even care. Apparently most people and Americans especially like being slaves just as long as they are told that they are free. First off, we have Mothers Against Drunk Driving an organization with a long track record of endorsing anti-freedom policies advocating that breathalyzers should be included in every automobile by 2012 under the guise of drunk driving prevention. Microsoft, Google, EBay among others have helped found an organization called the Information Card Foundation whose goal is to create a driver’s license styled identification card that will be required for users to go online. The U.S. Senate is set to pass a bank bailout bill that will include a provision in the legislation that will require almost all online financial transactions to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Artificially intelligent surveillance cameras are being developed and they even want to forcibly implant microchips in prisoners. There is no question that this system the establishment is setting up represents nothing short of total enslavement and despotism.
I love Adam Sandler. From Billy Madison to Happy Gilmore to the Chanukah Song, the predecessor of the Superbad generation has effortlessly conquered the domain of slapstick comedy and inappropriate jokes. But damn you Scuba Steve! If you’re going to propagate misinformation about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, do it quietly—or at least in your non-comedic life.
You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Sandler’s new flick, takes Hollywood chicanery and stereotypes that denigrate Arabs to an unprecedented level—surpassing hit flicks like the Kingdom, the Siege, and every Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris movie that came before it. I group Zohan with other shamelessly racist action movies because a film should at least be minutely funny to be categorized as a comedy. For the Sandler diehards and hilarity-loving skeptics, I should clearly state: using race and prejudices to engender laughter is not the problem. Mel Brooks and the creators of South Park exploit stereotypes far beyond anything Sandler has ever done, but unlike Zohan, I don’t think insidious propaganda and underlying racism drive their comedy. After all, if this hebetudinous clunker was just comedy, Sandler and company wouldn’t have, as the New York Times reported, sought out Arab actors to give the movie “legitimacy.” Their search was successful and a few token Arabs showed their presence to innocuously inform the public that it is okay to vilify the crazy towel-headed terrorists once again.
AFGHAN opium poppy cultivation grew 17% last year, according to the 2008 World Drug Report, released by the United Nations.
It continues a six-year expansion of the country’s drug trade and increasing its share of global opium production to more than 92%. Afghanistan’s emergence as the world’s largest supplier of opium and heroin represents a serious setback to US policy in the region.
The opium trade has soared since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, which had eradicated almost all of the country’s opium poppies. The proceeds from the illicit trade are helping finance a resurgent Taliban battling US and allied troops.
Upon entering the London underground following a rare trip abroad last week I was hit with a sudden reminder that I was entering back into big brother control central when I encountered rows and rows of advertising boards plastered with the same stark posters reading “I THINK I’M BEING WATCHED”.
Amidst the CBS all seeing eyes, the hordes of surveillance cameras and the constant announcements to report anything suspicious, another poster read “Oh boy, what a Wonderful City!”.
The bold black lettering on a bright white background instantly reminded me of the subliminal advertising billboards in John Carpenter’s classic dystopic movie, They Live.
After a sea of lies and a tsunami of propaganda, the ugly truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars finally emerged into full view this week.
Four major western oil companies, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, BP and Total, are about to sign US-brokered no-bid contracts with the US-installed Baghdad regime to begin exploiting Iraq’s oil fields. Saddam Hussein had kicked these firms out three decades ago when he nationalized Iraq’s foreign-owned oil industry for the benefit of Iraq’s national development. The Baghdad regime is turning back the clock.
This agreement comes as talks are continuing between the Washington and its Baghdad client regime over future US basing rights in Iraq. After some face-saving Iraqi objections, it is expected that Baghdad will sign a compact with Washington giving US forces control of Iraq and its air space in a manner very similar to Great Britain’s colonial arrangement with Iraq.
Interestingly, the same oil companies that used to exploit Iraq when it was a British colony are now returning. As former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently admitted, the Iraq war was all about oil. VP Dick Cheney stated in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq was about oil, and for the sake of Israel.
